


There'll Always be a Place for You

by palavapeite



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, F/F, Female Bucky Barnes, Female Dum Dum Dugan, Female Jacques Dernier, Female Jim Morita, Female Steve Rogers, Female Toro, Minor Character Death, Multi, Nurses, Period-Typical Sexism, Pining, Polyamorous relationship, Polyamory, Rule 63!everyone, Threesome, WWII, army nurses, poly!steve for world peace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 20:49:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1997307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palavapeite/pseuds/palavapeite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of Bucky, who joins the ANC to become a field nurse in Europe, of Steve, who would give anything to go with her, and of Peggy, who meets them both and falls in love with them on different sides of the Atlantic. </p><p>Months later the war, or maybe fate finds them all in the same place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from Faith Hill’s “There you’ll be”, although guaranteed 0% of this fic were inspired by _Pearl Harbor_ and its crappy love triangle.

“Come on, Stevie.” Bucky tugged at Steve’s uniform, unbuttoning the top three buttons before Steve smacked her hands away and continued unbuttoning the cuffs herself, stepping out of the skirt at the same time as she pulled the blouse over her head.

“Where are we even going?” Steve asked, looking over her shoulder at Bucky, who was leaning in close to the shoddy mirror above the sink to put on lipstick. She wasn’t a great looker, neither of them were, but her lips, curved and bright red made her look-

“Are you just going to stand there?” Bucky said, smirking at Steve in the mirror and Steve sighed and pulled her acceptably pretty evening dress down over her shoulders.

“Tell me at least that we’re not going dancing again…”

Bucky’s hands stilled where they were buffing up the newly cut half curls of hair that reached only just below her ears and turned around to help Steve with her dress’ folds at the back. Her hands brushed up Steve’s back to close the button at the back of her neck while Steve made a face at her reflection in the mirror.

“We’re meeting them at that new fair,” Bucky said casually as she sat Steve down on a small chair and began to wrangle her hair, limp from a day’s work at the hospital, back into shape. “We might go dancing later.”

Steve groaned.

“ _Bucky_...” She resisted for a short moment before she held still so Bucky could dab some powder on her face and make her cough.

“Jim said his friend’s a great dancer,” Bucky added, grabbing for the rouge. “It’s gonna be fun, Stevie. Now hold still, you don’t want it to be uneven.”

Steve rolled her eyes, but didn’t move, focussing on breathing and getting a little lost in Bucky’s perfume as she stared straight ahead, blinking against the powder that fell onto her lashes. Bucky’s ma’s old necklace dangled before Steve’s face, and she followed its movements until Bucky straightened back up.

“No-one wants to dance with me, Buck,” Steve said stubbornly, standing up and patting down her dress again, which fell in creases down her flat chest. Bucky, who had been rummaging around in her little make up case, turned back to Steve and shoved her right back down onto the chair, the small stub of a kohl liner and mascara in her hand.

“Nonsense,” she said as she began to paint Steve’s eyes. Her eyes met Steve’s and her voice became more gentle. “I love dancing with you.”

Steve smiled weakly at that. Of the handful of people who’d ever danced with Steve, Bucky had been the only one to bear with it for all of the short time it took Steve’s lungs to give out, regardless of how many times Steve stepped on her toes. And no matter how many times Bucky emphasised that it was all about how good a leader the fella was, Steve had long since stopped deluding herself about how attractive the prospect of dancing with her was to anyone.

“Blink,” came Bucky’s order and Steve did, mascara sliding onto her lashes, left, then right.

She followed Bucky’s movements with her eyes when she turned to pick up Steve’s lipstick, eyes trailing along the line of her back, so bare now that her hair was gone, the bumps of her spine visible against the light. Bucky was square rather than curvy, a little too thin right now for her frame, maybe, but supple enough to at least dent the front of an average dress. Bucky didn’t look like her body had just stopped growing after the age of twelve, Steve thought miserably, crossing her arms over her chest.

“It’s my last night, Stevie,” Bucky said quietly and a gentle touch to her lips pulled Steve out of her thoughts. She looked up at Bucky, who was still holding the tube of lipstick, and forced a smile. She could tell from the look on Bucky’s face that she wasn’t convincing anyone, so she just shook her head.

“I want to come with you,” she said and Bucky smiled sadly.

“I know. But someone’s gotta take care of all the people this side of the pond,” she said. “And I’m not sure anyone else could be trusted with it.”

Steve huffed and held still as Bucky traced the shape of her mouth with red, wiping away a smudge with her thumb.

“You’re beautiful,” Bucky said when Steve stood up.

“You too, Buck,” Steve replied quietly.  


***

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” Steve said two hours later, glancing past Bucky at the two guys that had taken them to The City of Tomorrow, and were now ready to move on to a dancehall. “I just… look, can I just go home?”

Bucky looked at her for a while, then nodded, averting her eyes.

“Yeah, we can. Let’s… I’ll tell the guys, we’re going home-“

“No,” Steve interrupted, trying her best to smile encouragingly while waving her hand casually. “You… you should go dancing and have fun. I’m just… tired, and I’ve got a double shift tomorrow.” She watched doubt play across Bucky’s face. “Honestly, Bucky. I don’t wanna ruin this night for you. Go and have fun. I’ll be fine, I’ll just go home and get some sleep.”

Bucky seemed to believe it for the sake of avoiding argument, and Steve almost believed it herself as she strode through the dark streets, walking past the signs and posters that encouraged people to join the war effort and serve their country.

When she reached the end of their street, she kept walking.

“I have the necessary experience,” she argued with the clerk at the Red Cross office, not for the first time. “My mother was an army nurse in the last war. I fulfil all the criteria, I-“

“Your own medical record,” the clerk replied, just like all the times before, “lists a number of ailments, all of which disqualify you from serving in the Army Nurse Corps, Miss Rogers.” He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Look, how many times do I… You have asthma, that alone makes you unfit to work in a field hospital. And then there’s the whole rest of it… your eyesight, your hearing, multiple cases of pneumonia in the past eight years, chronic anaemia, you are underweight…” He trailed off and leaned forward, glaring at Steve. “How do you expect to save lives over there when you’re too busy trying to keep breathing? How’re you going to move patients twice your size, or move the whole hospital on short notice?”

“How about you let me try?” Steve retorted, feeling her cheeks reddening under the rouge on her face. “Can I get at least a chance here? Who are you to deny me my duty as an American citizen? You need volunteers, well, I am volunteering!”

“This is a war, Miss,” the man said impatiently, shoving her application form back at her. “Trust me, I am saving both your life and the lives of soldiers over in Europe when I tell you there’s no shame in staying at home and taking care of the patients that need help here.”

Steve snorted.

“Yeah, I bet that’s what you’re telling yourself,” she spat and turned to leave, fists clenched in the pockets of her coat as she strode down the stairs and finally stepped out into the street. Stubbornly ignoring the laughing and giggling group of uniformed nurses that left the building just behind her, followed by a bunch of starry-eyed soldiers, she tried to figure out the fastest way to get home, suddenly weary and tired and longing for her bed.

It didn’t matter, she decided when she started walking. She’d be back, and sooner or later someone would admit her.

She had barely taken ten steps when a voice behind her stopped her.

“Excuse me, Miss?”

For a moment she considered ignoring whoever it was, but the urge to let off some steam was too big. She turned around, head high and back stiff.

To her surprise, however, the man who’d spoken was neither burly nor boorish, and on the whole, didn’t look like the type that usually held up women who were walking alone at night. He was taller than her, which wasn’t difficult, but only about as tall as maybe Bucky, with an unassuming face behind round glasses. He didn’t have much hair left to speak of when he took off his hat.

“Yes?”

“I apologise for my bluntness,” the man said, stepping a little closer and offering his hand. “I couldn’t help overhearing the argument inside…”

Steve squared her shoulders and stuck out her chin.

“And you are?”

It was the kind of attitude that had gotten her in trouble before, she knew, but there were enough people still around that she wasn’t too worried. The man, however, merely shrugged and smiled a little awkwardly.

“Of course, excuse my lack of manners. Doctor Abraham Erskine.”

She looked at him sceptically for a moment before taking his hand and shaking it briefly.

“Steve Rogers,” she said, then corrected herself. “Grace Steven Rogers.”

“I was just wondering, Miss Rogers,” Erskine continued mildly. “Why you’re so desperate to go to war.”

She was taken aback for a moment, not knowing what to say, and he tilted his head.

“I hope you don’t mind the question, but it seems surprising. What is it that makes you want to go and work in a field hospital so badly?”

“I don’t understand,” Steve blurted out, frowning at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, is it death? The danger? The grotesque of it?”

“I…” she shook her head. “No! How can you say that?”

He didn’t reply and she shook her head in disbelief, pulling her arms around herself.

“I’m a nurse. I’m not in it for _death_.” Her voice was sharp and, as she’d been told on numerous occasions, far too stern for a woman who wasn’t talking to her naughty children. She didn’t give a hoot, shoulders pulled up to her full four feet nine. “But I don’t like bullies, and right now my generation is being called out to defend this country, to defend the principle of freedom against those who’d take it away. If all young men are called to go and there’s only this one way for me to help, then I want to do my part. Not because I like to see death, but because I can help _save_ lives.”

She glared at him defiantly, somewhat irritated when he looked pleasantly surprised rather than amused or put off by her lecture. He began to fumble in his breast pocket for something and eventually pulled out a little card that he held out to her.

“You surprise me, Miss Rogers,” he said, wiggling the card a little to encourage her to take it. “If you want to help the war effort, I might be able to help you.”

Steve took the card, eyes widening.

“You mean-“

“I cannot get you to Europe,” he said quickly, shaking his head apologetically, and her face fell a little. “But there is something that you can do here that will help this country win the war if we’re successful. I’m afraid that is all I can tell you now. Think about it.” He nodded at the card in her hands. “If you decide you are interested, come see me at this address tomorrow.”

He bowed a little awkwardly and put his hat back on.

“Wait,” Steve managed to blurt out, narrowing her eyes. “Why are you doing this? Why offer me a job?”

This time, there was amusement in his smile.

“I think you might have the right spirit for this project. Good evening, Miss Rogers.”

The card burned a hole into Steve’s pocket all the way back to their apartment. Even when Bucky came home only a little time after Steve herself, tired and giddy from dancing, and slipped into bed with Steve, Erskine’s offer echoed faintly in her head. She hadn’t made up her mind just yet, but then again, she thought, she wasn’t sure whether there was anything to make up her mind about. Bucky was leaving tomorrow and there was nothing but paperwork at the hospital for Steve.

Bucky’s skin was sweaty through her thin nightdress and Steve told her as much when she turned around to face her.

“You should have been there, Stevie,” Bucky replied, pulling her close and hugging her, legs tangling under the thin sheets. Steve grunted noncommittally and Bucky squeezed her body a little tighter. “I’ll miss you, you know. Like breathing,” she whispered after a while.

Steve, who had just been about to play the asthma card to not be so close, to not feel so vulnerable and open against Bucky’s warm body, swallowed down on her mock bravado and sniffled, blinking against the tears that suddenly stung in her eyes.

“I’ll miss you too, Buck,” she said, doing her best to laugh rather than sob when Bucky pressed a kiss to her cheek and loosened her grip enough for them to be able to go to sleep.

***

There were two weeks of basic training, which wasn’t so much basic training as it was time to make sure Steve had a vague idea of what she was getting herself into before she got to sign an entire stack of confidentiality agreements and Erskine could tell her about Project “Rebirth”. To her relief, nobody had batted an eyelid when she’d admitted that she’d worked in administration for the past three years because of her fragile health and proclivity to pick up colds left and right. In the end, she passed the tests and training with some wheezing and mostly sore muscles.

She received one letter from Bucky, still from this side of the pond, who was undergoing training herself and waiting to ship out, and who sounded jolly as she talked about the other nurses she was meeting. Steve put the letter on top of her clothes in her suitcase before she closed it and left their Brooklyn apartment. She couldn’t let Bucky know that she was moving out, or where she was going, but she’d asked the grumpy landlady to forward mail to a safe address Erskine had given her, hoping that at least some of the letters would come through.

Her fingers found the pendant of Bucky’s necklace that she had left behind with her, for safekeeping. And something to remember her by.

There were thirty candidates, Erskine explained to Steve when they sat in a car to New Jersey. It was going to be her job to help monitor their health and physical fitness while they underwent a specialised training programme to be eventually selected to become the first of an entire army of American super soldiers.

Steve listened to him, memorising names of supervising doctors and her immediate superiors in the chain of command. There was going to be a routine of physical check-ups and vaccinations for the men, Erskine continued, and she would have to keep the records and report any and all irregularities immediately. Each soldier was going to be on a special diet that she was allowed to adjust according to her best judgement.

“You are given the rank of Captain,” he informed her. “Which means all recruits will need to obey your direct orders or face disciplinary action.”

When the gates of Camp Lehigh closed behind them, Steve was shown her room, where she had all of five minutes to settle in and freshen up before Erskine came to take her to the infirmary section. He introduced her to Dr McGee, the physician in charge of the project, who ran her through the basic routines again and finished just in time for the recruits to arrive for first reporting.

That night, Steve curled up under her blankets and clutched Bucky’s necklace to herself as she fell asleep. All thirty candidates were big and strong, and no undeserved rank or amount of basic training could have made Steve better at handling the cocksure commentary of bored and half-naked bullies who had been told they qualified for a programme that took only the best, without slapping them in the face.

Despite her best efforts it had taken an intervention by McGee to get some of the men to follow Steve’s instructions without questioning them at every turn, and even though she hadn’t given anyone the satisfaction of lowering her guard one bit, and her needle pricks had become less and less gentle, she’d still left straight for her room when her work was done. She'd skipped dinner in favour of unpacking her suitcase, the occasional silent tear rolling down her face, and sat sketching the familiar outlines of the home she’d left until it was time for bed.

The next morning Steve watched all candidates stand to attention, when a dark-haired woman socked Hodge in the jaw hard enough to make his teeth rattle. She was tall, looked impeccable in her uniform, her hair and make-up pristine, and Steve hid her smile and couldn't quite stop looking at her for the rest of the morning routine.

When Hodge came to see Steve about the shiner on his face, she prodded it a couple of times just to see him flinch and told him it was nothing and that he was going to be fine.

***

Steve was idly doodling the face of the choleric drill sergeant into the corner of the mostly empty protocol sheet, suppressing the third yawn in a row as she waited for the car to start moving. Contributing to the war effort was turning out to consist to a frustratingly large amount of sitting around and waiting for other people to do things.

“I always assumed protocols were supposed to come in writing,” a wry voice startled her and Steve jerked out of her seat in embarrassment and surprise when Agent Carter climbed into the back of the car next to her, and the engine jumped to life.

“Agent Carter, I… uh, I’m really sorry,” Steve blurted out, covering the doodle with her hand and pressing the clipboard down into her lap when the car hit a bump in the road as it trailed behind the running soldiers. “I mean, I - _ma’am_ , I apologise, I didn’t mean to-“

The car turned onto a field road and the next bump lifted Steve out of her seat altogether. Her pencil rolled to the floor and, holding on to the railing behind her, Steve saw how Agent Carter stepped on it and picked it up. She held it out to Steve.

“Oh, hell…” Steve muttered miserably, blushing furiously when she took the pencil and shoved it securely under the clasp of the clipboard. “Thanks,” she added, glancing at Agent Carter from the corner of her eyes. “Uh, ma’am.”

“At ease,” Agent Carter smiled, looking around to take in the scenery before focusing back on Steve. “No apology necessary.”

Steve just pressed her lips together to keep herself from saying anything more stupid, like how she had a drawing of Agent Carter overseeing a group of baboons doing press-ups in her sketchbook back on base, and how she wished her hair stuck fixed back like Agent Carter’s and wasn’t already flopping down into her face again, and how she liked watching her giving instructions a lot more than watching the men following them.

Instead, all they heard for the next hour was the rumbling of the car and the aggressively off-key singing of the recruits, which turned all the more aggressive the more breathless it became, right up until it was time to stop for a break. The sun had risen in the sky and Steve, who was on the second day of her period, wished for nothing more than to be back on base where she wouldn’t have to sneeze every time they drove past a meadow or a blooming bush.

The drill sergeant yelled something and Steve saw Agent Carter turn around in her seat with idle interest. Hockley cried out when he landed on his behind and Steve rolled her eyes.

“We’ve been on this tour five times,” she muttered under her breath as she jotted down a quick note and continued to watch thirty grown men make one collective ass of themselves. “How long until someone finally pulls out the darned peg and gives the pole a kick?”

She only really noticed that she’d said it out loud when Agent Carter turned to look at her in surprise. Steve shrugged awkwardly.

“Well, it would get the job done, right?”

“Right,” Agent Carter said, amusement in her voice, and she didn’t stop looking at Steve even when the car started moving again.

When they were back at the camp, Steve was surprised when Agent Carter held out her hand to help Steve out of the car.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Steve muttered, a little flustered, and Peggy tapped her finger against the doodle on the protocol in Steve’s hand.

“This is pretty accurate, you know. You should keep it up.” When Steve looked away in embarrassment, she added. “And you should call me Peggy.”

“I…” Steve looked up at her, slightly flustered. “Steve. My friends call me Steve.”

***

Erskine took a trip to New York to meet Howard Stark, and brought back a letter from Bucky for Steve. Steve could tell from its contents that it was the only one that had actually reached her out of many, and she read it every night for a whole week, trying to see more, get to know a little bit more about Bucky's life with every time to make up for everything she'd missed.

Bucky had included a stick figure drawing of her whole group of nurses she worked with in return for the drawing of their street in Brooklyn that Steve had sent her a while ago. Steve had drawn it from memory, and she drew Bucky from memory now, surrounded by women she’d never met, but who had somehow come to life from the descriptions Bucky had given in her letter. One of them, Toro, with the wicked eyes and black curls, might have looked a bit like Peggy.

Steve herself wrote to Bucky as regularly as always, furnishing small truths around the big lie at the centre, talking about mundane things and musings so she didn’t have to be quite so dishonest about where she was and why. She added little drawings to the margins of her letters, trees and bushes that might have been Central Park, doodles of people who might have been passers-by, in clothes that weren’t uniforms. It made her want to be back in Brooklyn, with Bucky, with something more to do than watch soldiers go through their routine day in day out. Reducing the amount of every rude jerk’s breakfast bacon had been a brief source of amusement.

She spent most of her time between medical check-ups and her daily reports to Erskine and Dr McGee keeping an eye on the men, drawing the camp, or the couple of cats that were kept to keep the mice away, or Peggy Carter as she yawned her way up and down between rows of sweating men stripping guns. Steve knew that Peggy could assemble a gun in record time and was a crack shot, and occasionally she’d watch her on the range in the evening, while the candidates were at dinner.

“You should give it a try,” Peggy said one night and Steve had to wipe the sweat off her hands before taking the revolver. She tried, really tried not to focus too much on the way Peggy stood behind her, helping her adjust her stance and take aim, and instead keep her eyes on the target.

It was too dark, and Steve had to squint to see through the dusky light, but two barrels later, the canvas with the bullseye painted on was at least frayed around the edges.

“Maybe I should stick to drawing you shoot the things,” she said, looking up at Peggy and smiling.

“I should like to see that,” Peggy simply replied. “I dare you to draw Phillips sometime.”

Peggy enjoyed Steve’s doodles most of all, because as she claimed, Steve had a knack for drawing people’s personalities. When Steve had shown her the drawing of her drilling a group of monkeys, she had laughed so much at it, Steve had let her have the drawing, signed and with a dedication.

There were also drawings that Steve never showed her, at the back of her sketchbook, where Steve had sometimes drawn Bucky when Bucky was asleep, or out and not due back in a while, or where she drew Bucky now, when she missed her most. They were drawings of Bucky in bed early in the morning, nightdress tangled with the sheets, her strong limbs in contrast to the pale white linen. Bucky, who was smiling so brightly, it made Steve ache.

Somewhere among those pages, there was a sketch of Peggy’s dark eyes and the gentleness that sometimes stole across her face when her guard was down, and her graceful, capable hands.

***

“Steve! Wait!”

She could hear Peggy’s voice behind her as she stormed towards her room, face burning with humiliation. The laughter of the recruits had been silenced rather violently by Colonel Phillips, but it still rang loudly in Steve’s head as she hurried up the two steps to the building she was living in.

The door slammed shut behind her and she kicked the one chair in her room hard enough for it to topple over. Pain shot through her toes and foot, and she cursed under her breath.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she spat as she beat the sand and dirt off her white uniform. There was a tear in her stockings, and it had been her last pair.

“Stevie,” Peggy’s voice came softly from the door and Steve whirled around to face her, angry tears filling her eyes.

“How can they-“ Steve began, gulping breaths. “How _dare_ they laugh at me? Gosh, I am so… I feel so stupid, how did I not realise?” Sobs began to break out of her throat and her lungs ached with the force of her breaths.

Peggy stood by the closed door, arms by her side.

“I didn’t either, Stevie,” she said gently, taking a step towards Steve, whose mascara was beginning to run down her cheeks with the first tear that fell from her eyes. “You were simply faster.”

She’d been standing further away, while Steve had been right there, taping up a cut on Milson’s hand when Phillips had shouted his warning.

“A _dummy_ grenade!” Steve’s voice broke and she sat down on her bed, wiping furiously at her eyes and making the mess ten times worse. There was sand in her hair that came out when her hand brushed over it and as abruptly as she’d started, she was suddenly too angry to cry, heaving dry breaths that felt like her ribs were going to crack.

 _‘Is this a test?_ ’ she’d asked dumbly, like it took a genius to figure it out, when she so obviously hadn’t been blown to pieces. Phillips had looked too stunned to say anything, and Erskine’s face had been indecipherable, but the laughter of the men as they’d slowly stepped out of cover had been answer enough.

“What you did was truly brave, Stevie,” Peggy said softly as she sat down next to Steve, hands in her lap.

“That’s really not what it feels like right now,” Steve snorted in reply, smudging the mascara around her cheeks until she gave up with a sigh and stepped over to the small sink in the corner to wash her face. Bucky's necklace slipped out from under her collar and softly fell against the underside of her chin as she stood bent over the basin. When she lifted her face out of the towel, wiping the last drops of water off her chin, Peggy stood beside her, gesturing with a hairbrush.

Steve was short enough not to have to sit down, so she watched in the mirror as Peggy brushed the dirt out of her hair and pulled and twisted it back into shape.

“All I know,” Peggy said eventually, her eyes meeting Steve’s reddened ones in the mirror, “Is that the ANC were bloody fools not to take Steve Rogers.”

“Yeah, I bet the war’d be over by now,” Steve replied dryly and Peggy laughed, turning Steve around by the shoulders. A smiled tugged at Steve’s lips despite herself and she looked up at Peggy. “Thanks.”

Peggy squeezed her shoulder and, after a long moment, stepped back a little.

“You should get changed. I hear Erskine wants to celebrate tonight.”

Steve grimaced and looked down at herself, cheeks still burning, if maybe not for the same reasons.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got stockings I could borrow, do you?”

***

The car ride to New York the next day was as dreary as the weather and Steve tried to rub at her drooping eyes without ruining her eyeliner.

“You are not hungover, are you, Miss Rogers?” Erskine asked, a mock sternness to his voice and Steve sat up a little straighter.

“No, of course not.” It was the truth; she’d had one glass of grappa before she’d excused herself and gone to her room. But she’d sat awake until midnight and had missed Bucky more fiercely than she had in a long time. She’d added some pages to the letter she was going to send once she was in New York, and had fallen asleep at her desk.

“This is the big day,” Erskine said conversationally, glancing out of the window at the scenery that rushed past. “Exciting. But you don’t approve, do you?”

The look in his eyes left no doubt that he knew better than fall for a lie, so Steve dropped her gaze to her lap.

“I just wish it wasn’t Hodge,” she said quietly, defiance in her eyes when she looked back up at Erskine, who was smiling wryly. “It shouldn’t be him.”

“No. I agree,” he said, then sighed. “Unfortunately, I was outvoted. And no-one stepped up to prove a worthier candidate, I’m afraid. At least,” - his smile turned rueful - “no-one I could nominate to take his place.”

Steve huffed and tugged her coat tighter around her shoulders. The drizzling outside had stopped when they’d gotten closer to New York, but it still wasn’t exactly a nice day.

“Hodge is still a bully,” she eventually said, and Erskine didn’t bother denying it.

“And if we are successful today there will be many more like him,” he said instead, putting a hand on Steve’s elbow to make her turn back to him. “And neither you nor I can do anything about it. But,” he leaned a little closer. “What you _can_ do is promise me, Steve, that you will continue to be the measure against which they should be held.”

***

When Peggy stepped through the opening doors, Hodge in tow, the treatment room was already bustling with people. Her eyes sought Steve in the crowd, and found her standing by as Dr McGee, Erskine and Howard Stark discussed the procedure. As usual, Stark was the person of the entire science group who looked least like a scientist and most like a bingo host.

“Agent Carter,” Colonel Phillips said, stepping up to her, and returning her salute before focusing his attention to Hodge, whose face was so tight, he looked like he might burst.

Ten seconds and a handshake with the mayor later, she and Hodge were led down one level, where a circle of control panels, monitors and metal railing was built around a slightly lowered platform further fenced in by four metal pillars. An operation chair stood at its centre.

Serious faces turned towards them when they approached Erskine and Stark, and Steve wordlessly moved over to the medical corner and returned with a series of syringes in a small metal case. Hodge had taken off his jacket, shirt, shoes and belt and was surrendering his dog tags to Colonel Phillips.

“You are being given penicillin,” Erskine commented, not batting an eyelid when Steve stabbed the needle into Hodge’s meat without much preamble. Peggy could see Stark raise an eyebrow at Hodge’s blank expression, but suppressed her grin successfully when Steve’s eyes met hers. She was perhaps less successful about the fluttering feeling in her chest, but no-one was going to be the wiser for it.

“As soon as Mr Stark is ready, we will climb down, you will be strapped to the chair and injected with the serum, before you will be exposed to vita rays,” Erskine continued while Stark turned to talk to his assistants. “Mr Stark and his team, the man operating the camera, myself, Dr McGee and Nurse Rogers will remain here below to monitor the procedure from a closer distance. Everyone else,” he looked at Colonel Phillips and Peggy, raising his voice just a little for any other bystanders, “Everyone else will be safely shielded from the rays up on the observation deck.”

"This is not exactly what I'd call contained, Stark," Phillips grunted and it was probably good that Stark's ego was as big and indestructible as it was.

"There's no metal or otherwise known substance on earth that could contain the energy released in this procedure, Colonel. This is the smallest scale it can be built, but rest assured that no harm will come to you if you stay up there with the other visitors."

There was no arguing and Peggy let herself be guided back up the stairs by Phillips, casting only a brief glance back at Steve, who was carrying the metal case with the syringes as she followed Erskine and Hodge down onto the platform.

“Mr Stark, are we ready?”

Stark replied something to the positive and Peggy watched as Hodge was injected with two of the three vials that contained the serum before Steve and Erskine climbed back out of the small pit and Stark flipped the switch.

Everything in the room went dark for a moment, save for the pillars around the platform that began to emanate rays and bolts of light that focused on Hodge, who held out for about ten seconds before he started screaming. Peggy glanced at Stark and Erskine, who didn’t look too worried yet, then back at Hodge.

The light grew more intense and soon it was hard to make out the details of Hodge’s body. A crease appeared on Stark’s face and he began to tap his buttons with visible urgency.

It was when blood began to gush from Hodge’s nose that everyone understood that something was seriously wrong, and yet it was Steve’s sudden scream amidst the overall commotion that drew Peggy’s attention.

Steve stood with her back against the pit, struggling and kicking to wrangle the last of the syringes containing the serum out of the grip of one of the two camera men that had been brought in to record the procedure. The man was almost literally twice Steve’s size and Peggy flinched when he slammed Steve’s tiny white frame against the railing.

“Steve!”

It was barely audible over Stark’s shouting, Hodge’s screaming, and the shocked outcries of the spectators around Peggy when one of the pillars began to tilt and the rays started to spread unfocused across the pit. Peggy shoved past Phillips to get down and help, but Phillips held her back.

“It’s dangerous down there, Agent Carter!”

“I don’t-“

A shot suddenly rang through the room and Peggy whirled around, blood running cold in her veins. Below, Erskine, who had run to Steve’s aid, crumpled to the floor.

“No!” Steve screamed, furiously tearing at the syringe with her entire body’s weight. The man stumbled in surprise, lost his footing and crashed into her, and suddenly both he and Steve froze. When he stepped back, Steve’s hands were clutching at her stomach, fingers still wrapped around the body of the suddenly empty syringe, the needle embedded to the hilt in her flesh.

Peggy’s bullet whirred past the man’s head, missing him by less than an inch, and he shoved away from Steve, pushing her over the railing and down into the pit where what was left of Hodge was still strapped to the mangled remains of the table. Gashes of lightning tore from the depths and for a moment Peggy stood staring, unable to move.

When Phillips began to yell orders beside her to get everyone out, she raised her gun once more, took aim and watched the first camera man drop to the ground.

“Get everyone out here!” Stark began to call up at them when he’d crawled out from his cover and had a chance to survey the damage. “The ceiling’s coming down!”

“Shut it down!” Peggy yelled at him as she and Phillips made their way down the stairs and towards Erskine. “Just shut it off!”

“I did!” Stark yelled back. “This is a complete overload collapsing in on itself!”

Shielding her eyes from the light, Peggy reached the railing and called Steve’s name, but Stark grabbed her and pulled her away.

Erskine was blinking slowly, taking a moment to focus his eyes on Peggy when she knelt beside him.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We’re getting you out.”

“Carter, watch out!” Phillips called, terror in his voice as the cracking of another one of the pillars filled the air and Peggy had barely time to see the metal coming down on her before she was grabbed and hauled to the side in a flash of white.

Dots were dancing before her eyes and she blinked as the world turned back the right way up.

“Steve,” she heard Erskine said softly, and he was smiling up at the tall, blonde woman who crouched above him. He sounded genuinely and pleasantly surprised while she felt for his pulse and threw Peggy a helpless look.

“We gotta get him outside,” she said and Peggy stared wordlessly as Steve – _Steve_ – hauled Erskine up into a sitting position and tucked him under her arm as she got to her feet. She was a head taller than him and her clothes clung to her, dirty and torn at the seams.

She was unbelievable.

She was alive.

“Peggy!”

Steve was already making to move towards the exit, carrying Erskine with one hand and pulling Peggy off the floor with the other. Stumbling to her feet, Peggy went, closely followed by Stark and Phillips.

Steadily hurrying away from the sound of collapsing brick and metal, they were greeted by the crowd of people who had evacuated the building, and Phillips began to bark everyone into order. Peggy watched as Steve lowered Erskine to the ground, fumbling past his tie to get at the wound in his chest.

“Just stay with me, Doctor, McGee will have you sorted out in no time,” she said, looking around for McGee, who was nowhere to be seen.

“Steve,” Erskine wheezed, and he looked proud and smug as he lifted a hand to prod her just below her collarbone. “It worked, Steve. It worked perfectly.” He was almost grinning, nodding to himself before he turned serious. “You promise me, Steve..”

“I promise,” she replied, eyes restlessly looking around and finally settling on Peggy’s when he went limp in her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously I made adjustments to the technicalities of the supersoldiering procedure - instead of Howard Stark’s beefcake microwave as seen in the movie, I chose a slightly less contained version that can be found in Brubaker’s vol. 5, e.g. the Reborn arc #2, and adapted that to suit my needs. Hey, it’s not entirely uncanon. ;)


	2. Two

The tent was dark and smelled both sterile and stuffy, and Peggy took care to not drag too much mud in when she stepped out of the night rain. It was quiet save for the steady drum of raindrops on the roof, and only one lamp was burning low out in the larger room that was shielded from the back section by a large flap.

The soft snore of the handful of soldiers that were being kept overnight before they’d be moved the next morning was audible, but she didn’t notice any movement or signs that someone was awake.

Lighting a small lamp on a nearby folding table, she unwrapped the handkerchief that was wound around her right hand and began to quietly look around for something halfway sterile to clean up the blood and pus that had seeped through the stitches again.

“Help you with something?” a low voice suddenly asked, and Peggy turned around, hand reflexively moving to the gun at her hip.

It took her a moment to realise that she was looking at what had to be the night nurse and not a soldier as she’d thought. The woman was taller than Peggy, her dark hair shorter than was usual, and she wore slacks with an olive uniform jacket that was too large to be her own, presumably against the damp cold.

Peggy’s hand slid off her colt and she straightened up when the nurse stepped closer and grabbed the lamp, looking Peggy up and down. Unconsciously, Peggy clasped at her own jacket that she’d quickly thrown on when she’d climbed back out of bed, unable to sleep for the pain in her hand.

“I can just take a look at that, you know,” the nurse said, nodding at Peggy’s hand. “No need to sneak in.”

“I’m fine,” Peggy replied, more or less automatically, tugging her sleeve down to cover more of her hand. “A plaster will do.” 

The nurse snorted and hung the lamp up on a hook before she pulled a folding chair and a table over.

“Sure it will. Grab a chair and sit down.”

There was no sign of annoyance or condescension in the way she said it, and Peggy sagged her shoulders and decided she was tired enough to simply do as she was told. She watched the nurse grab a handful of utensils from a large leather bag and sit down opposite Peggy, running a hand through her hair to keep it out of her face. She wasn’t wearing make-up either, but her eyes were alert. She hadn’t been sleeping.

“Wow, where the hell did you get that one?” the nurse muttered when she looked at the cut that ran from the knuckles of Peggy’s middle finger across the back of her hand up over her wrist.

“I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you that, I’m afraid,” Peggy said, noticing how the nurse’s eyes darted to the insignia on her uniform jacket before focusing back on cutting and pulling the rudimentary stitches out.

“Darn, guess I should salute, huh,” she muttered and Peggy snorted.

“Please don’t. Unless you can do it unironically.”

A gentle laugh fell from the other woman’s lips and she grinned at Peggy while discarding a bit of twine in a small bowl.

“I don’t think there’s anything I do unironically anymore,” she said, “but I would give it a try.”

“Fair enough,” Peggy chuckled, then flinched when the nurse pulled out another piece of thread.

“You know, usually when people sneak in,” she said conversationally, smirking a little, “they’re looking for alcohol.”

“It that’s an offer, it comes pretty late,” Peggy said, pursing her lips at the burn of disinfectant and the nurse looked amused and a little sorry when she admitted there was no alcohol fit for drinking to be had, and that yes, she had checked. 

A comfortable silence fell and Peggy watched as the cut was cleaned and stitched back together, a lot more neatly than Peggy had managed to on her way back to the rendezvous point.

“You should come back in a couple of days and let me have another look at it,” the nurse said eventually, fixing a light bandage over Peggy’s hand and giving it an approving nod before getting up. “To see if it heals as it should.”

“Thank you,” Peggy replied, flexing her hand a couple of times as she stood. She swallowed, picking her words carefully, for a reason she couldn’t quite name, but it was late and she should probably have been asleep hours ago. “And who should I ask for?”

It prompted a laugh that ended up muffled behind a hand when one of the patients stirred and groaned in his sleep. The nurse threw a quick glance past the flap before turning back to Peggy.

“Second Lieutenant Jane Barnes, at your service, ma’am,” she said, saluting with a pair of tweezers as she began to clear away the equipment. Peggy smiled to herself before she left, thinking that Barnes hadn’t lied about not doing anything unironically anymore.

Somehow, Peggy didn’t mind.

***

The stay at the field hospital consisted primarily of finding people and debriefing them while fending off nurses who tried their best to shoo her and Phillips away from patients who needed rest, Peggy concluded after two days of miserable weather, and with the onset of a cold tugging at her.

The intel she’d brought back had been useful enough, and soon troops were being moved across the large map in Phillips’s tent. Lord Falsworth arrived with his men and they had just begun making plans for another push north towards Austria when they received an urgent call back to London from Howard Stark.

Peggy didn’t have time to go back and see Nurse Barnes, but she spotted her briefly from the back of the car that was taking them south to the nearest airfield. Barnes and a handful of other nurses were unloading a shipment of medical supplies, and Barnes stopped for a small wave, barely more than a tilt of her hand and a smile when the car went by. Peggy raised her bandaged hand an inch in reply.

When the plane left the ground, for reasons she couldn’t quite name, all Peggy could think of was Stevie Rogers.

It had been months since she’d last seen Steve, and it had broken her heart to see her go, to see the hurt on her face when Phillips had told her that he had no use for her, an accident and a woman, when he’d been promised an army of soldiers.

“If there was ever going to be just one,” Peggy had said afterwards, holding up Steve before she could just walk out and get in the car that had been sent for her, “Erskine would’ve wanted it to be you. He was proud of you, he-“

“And yet,” Steve had cut her off, her blue eyes hard and cold in a way Peggy thought they should never be, “I am as useless as I was before.”

“Steve, wait…!”

The flight to England was long, and Peggy didn’t get a minute of sleep. She thought instead of the tilt of Steve’s neck when she was attentive, her crooked way of smiling when she felt like she shouldn’t be finding something funny, and the way the sun had shone on her hair on that car ride when they’d first met. How soft her hair had felt when she’d brushed it.

***

When Phillips laid out the rough outline of the mission to her, Peggy was too worn out by weeks of strategic meetings and long negotiations with the Allied governments to say no. They were back in Italy, finally, but far from the front in an old country villa with a farm attached that had been turned into a school, and then eventually abandoned completely shortly before the war. Now men moved in and out, departing on leave, or just returning back to duty, and after two days, Peggy began to feel trapped.

“You’ll be on your own,” Phillips said, his voice sterner than his eyes. “You can’t be discovered under any circumstances, and you’ll have to go in unarmed. They will search you, and they cannot find anything, am I making this clear? No-one will come to get you if it goes wrong.”

Peggy didn’t reply immediately. She realised that it was a request, not an order. If she backed out, he wouldn’t hold it over her. She straightened up and nodded.

“When do I leave, Sir?”

He contemplated her for a moment, only looking away to glance at the door when it opened and someone came in. Peggy followed his gaze and saw the familiar face of Jane Barnes behind the imposing figure of the chief nurse. Both women saluted. Unironically. Peggy suppressed a smirk.

“107th field hospital, reporting for duty, Sir.”

Phillips returned the salute.

“There’s been a delay with the troops and you’ll remain stationed here until we receive news. Report to Major Thompson for sleeping arrangements and prepare to receive orders by tomorrow noon.”

“Sir,” the nurse replied gruffly, and Phillips nodded dismissively before he turned back to Peggy.

“That will be all for now, Agent Carter,” he said, his voice only a little tense. “Take the night off and report at oh-six hundred tomorrow for briefing.”

Peggy had just left the side wing of the large mansion when someone called her name behind her. Jane Barnes was wearing her dress uniform and even though her hair was freshly cut, it was done up underneath her hat and her lips were red.

“Agent Carter,” she said again when she stopped before Peggy, and Peggy raised an eyebrow. “How’s your hand?”

“All better now,” Peggy replied, holding up her hand to show the faint white scar that remained. She had almost forgotten about it.

“Good,” Barnes said, and shuffled her feet. “Listen, I’m sorry, I’m not sure this is appropriate...”

***

“So, Lord Falsworth…”

“Toro!”

The nurses snickered and Peggy grinned into her glass of mediocre Italian wine. Rose Thomas – Toro – was petite with a pretty face framed by wild, black curls, and her smile was positively wicked.

“I’m just asking!” she said pointedly, and Barnes – Bucky they called her, Peggy remembered – rolled her eyes. “Ain’t all of us got someone to write novels to back home…”

“He’s twice your age!” someone threw in.

“So what? He’s a war hero!” Toro stuck out her tongue and Bucky rolled her eyes, looking over at Peggy with a slightly exasperated expression before taking a comically large gulp of wine.

Bucky'd been writing a letter at the back of the room, by the light of a smaller lamp, when Peggy had entered the small dorm room, engrossed and smiling softly to herself. She’d left it when she’d spotted Peggy, and they’d joined the merry group of nurses that sat together in one corner, celebrating their unexpected night off. Where they’d gotten the alcohol from Peggy didn’t know, and hadn’t asked.

“Lord Falsworth,” Peggy said when the laughter had subsided somewhat, “has been happily married for years, I’m afraid.”

Toro’s face fell.

“Any sons? We’re not picky,” Chief Nurse Dugan asked helpfully, and the group burst out into laughter again, Toro included. Peggy, who had met Falsworth’s son, tried not to choke on her wine.

There was a gramophone that played crackly music that none of them knew the words to, but after their second glass, some of the women began to dance, twirling each other between the beds and bumping into nightstands. They looked careless and cheerful, as if they weren’t about to go back to war, and nothing about their bouncing curls and swinging skirts betrayed that they’d served under fire, all of them. Less than half an hour ago Peggy had heard the story of an attempted HYDRA raid during which they had helped defend the field hospital with guns nobody had taught them to use.

Bucky, who was still sitting next to Peggy, filled up both their glasses while offering mocking commentary on her dancing friends.

“I’ll have you know I could lindy hop you into the ground,” she mouthed back at a protesting Jane Morita, which drew a long, rumbly laugh out of Tamara Dugan.

“I believe that when I see it,” Peggy said wryly and Bucky gasped in mock offence.

“And I suppose you know all the fancy dances, the way you talk?”

“I’m a secret agent, aren’t I?” Peggy laughed, shucking off her shoes when Bucky pulled her out of her chair and towards the aisle between the rows of beds. All the nurses were in their stockings, jackets thrown aside and hair undone.

They danced through two faster songs, breathless and laughing, and Bucky was indeed as good a dancer as she’d said. She was taller than Peggy by perhaps an inch and didn’t hesitate to dance the male part when the next song was more subdued. Peggy in turn, put her hand on Bucky’s shoulder and stepped closer, swallowing down on the quivering in her throat when she felt Bucky’s breath at the tip of her nose.

“Whoa, Barnes,” Toro called, whistling from where she’d rested her head on Tamara’s shoulder. “What’s your girl back home gonna say?”

“She’d tell you to shove off and punch you, probably,” Bucky replied cheerfully, but moved them so that her back was turned to the table, shielding Peggy from view. Peggy could tell from the look on her face and the way her hand loosened its grip that she had noticed her stiffen at Toro’s words.

“I’m sorry, just ignore her,” Bucky muttered, head bowed. She glanced at Peggy from underneath the hair that had fallen into her face. “My friend back home, she’s not… it’s not like that. We’re friends. Have been since we were kids.”

“I understand,” Peggy replied softly, smiling a little and trying not to think of Steve and how she’d once said that she never danced, fingers playing with the necklace she never took off.

“She’s just a friend,” Bucky repeated, a little sadly perhaps.

"I know."

***

It was a quarter to six when Peggy made her way towards the main building for her briefing. She thought she could spot Howard Stark’s car parked in front of it and muffled a yawn. The grass was wet with dew and the mist that hung low above the ground, and most of the camp was still asleep. Peggy turned her head when she heard voices.

Bucky was talking to the mailman, who left with the first car every morning at six to report to the bases further south and get the news that travelled through unofficial channels. He nodded at her and she smiled at him as she backed away, her smile turning just a little rueful when she spotted Peggy.

“You finished your letter,” Peggy greeted her when she walked over and they began to move towards the main villa together. When they approached a copse of trees, Bucky plucked an apple from a low-hanging branch.

“Couldn’t sleep. I always write letters when I can’t sleep,” Bucky replied, biting into the apple and making a face before throwing the whole thing away. She looked sideways at Peggy. “It’s silly. I haven’t gotten a letter back in months. Stupid post, and we move around more than most field hospitals…” She tucked her hands into her pockets and focused on the ground before her. “Or who knows, maybe she’s finally found herself a beau who’ll see what a catch she really is.”

“The mail system does tend to be unreliable,” Peggy offered, and they were quiet for a while. “What’s she like?” she asked eventually, and Bucky glanced at her, her smile a little wistful.

“She’s…” Bucky stopped, looking up at the branches as if looking for the right words. When her eyes found Peggy’s, her smile was more of a grin. “Stubborn and infuriating, mostly. Righteous to a fault.”

Peggy smiled and Bucky shrugged. Her voice was soft.

“But she’s also… really lovely. Caring. A little too good for this world perhaps.” She pulled a face. “Definitely too good for me.”

Peggy didn’t know what to say and so she just stood there, watching small ripples of longing cross Bucky’s face. Suddenly, Bucky looked up.

“What about yours?”

“I…” It was too sudden a question, and Steve’s face was too clear before her inner eye for Peggy to come up with a convincing lie. Sighing, she leaned against a tree, facing away from the main building. Bucky moved closer, throwing a cautious look at the windows to make sure they were out of sight.

“Not much to tell, I’m afraid. I met her on a scientific project I was helping supervise, must be… six, seven months ago by now. She was a nurse and she…” Peggy smiled, then shrugged. “Everything about her just caught me off guard.” Bucky laughed encouragingly and Peggy shook her head. “I haven’t seen her since the project was scrapped. I doubt I ever will again.”

It was Bucky’s turn to look sympathetic and Peggy smiled wryly as she held her gaze.

“Thank you for the invitation last night,” she said eventually. “I had a really good evening.” She was about to kick away from the tree and make it to her briefing on time, when Bucky’s fingers brushed the sleeve of her uniform.

“So that’s your thing, then?” she said quietly, close to Peggy’s ear, and a little amused.“Nurses?”

Peggy's breath when she inhaled was shaking.

“I don’t know wh-“

Bucky was kissing her, soft and sincere, and Peggy let her hands trail up the line of Bucky’s arms to cup her face as she kissed back. Bucky wasn’t Steve, and Peggy wasn’t Bucky’s friend from back home, but Bucky tasted of comfort, of good things in unexpected places. Of something that could have been, if not. The bark of the tree was tearing at Peggy’s hair as she leaned back, and the fabric of Bucky’s trousers was brushing against the inside of her knee.

“I’ve got to,” she gasped when they broke apart, blinking and breathing hard. “I’ve got to be at a briefing.”

“Okay,” Bucky replied, a little reluctant to let go, but pulling away. Peggy moved forward to press another kiss to her lips, and Bucky smiled when she broke away. Her thumb was wiping at Peggy’s mouth, fixing the smudges of lipstick.

“Take care of yourself, Bucky,” Peggy said, squeezing her hand before turning away and walking up to the main building. She had to be late already.

“You too,” Bucky called after her.

***

When Peggy rejoined the 107th one and a half weeks later, Bucky was reading a letter from Steve that had arrived since, trying to grasp at whatever it was Steve didn’t say. She sounded unhappy, and Bucky couldn’t bear the thought of Steve being unhappy. The drawing she'd sent of Brooklyn months ago was folded neatly in the breast pocket of Bucky's uniform, and while she rarely felt homesick, she wanted nothing more than to be back with Steve.

Peggy was uninjured and not a hair on her head was crooked. She’d brought a bottle of Riesling from the eastern parts of Austria, and once she’d debriefed with Phillips she found Bucky at the end of her shift, wine in hand. Bucky smiled, something heavy lifting off her chest, and ducked out of the hospital tent to follow Peggy to her own quarters.

That night Bucky licked every last spilled golden drop off her skin, hips rolling down onto Peggy’s hand between her legs, and muffling her moans against a faint scar across Peggy’s collarbone.

“There were rumours,” Bucky muttered afterwards, face tucked into Peggy’s neck, the words clawing at her throat from the inside, “That something had gone wrong up north.”

“Were you worried?” Peggy asked, fingers tracing the line of Bucky’s cheekbone. She wasn’t teasing, and Bucky thought maybe she wouldn’t mind if Bucky’d been scared for her. It was a good feeling.

“Mh,” she replied, grinning just a little and sitting up on the bed. She ran a hand through her hair and pulled her legs up a little closer. “Guess that’s what I get for kissing secret agents.”

“Agents? _Plural_?” Peggy grinned back and Bucky laughed as she pulled the front of Peggy’s blouse, which she hadn't even taken off completely, back together, closing the button under her bosom and pressing a kiss to her sternum.

“Now who’s worried?” she teased, ducking and catching her brassiere out of the air when Peggy threw it at her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The presentation of field hospitals and everything related to them is freely (freely!) adapted from historical fact. My knowledge about nurses in World War II is mostly based on the information available [here](http://www.med-dept.com/articles/the-army-nurse-corps/), [here](https://sites.google.com/site/americanmilitarynursesinwwii/home) and [here](http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/72-14/72-14.HTM). While I did try to not just make wildly inaccurate shit up out of thin air, and base my details on facts and historical descriptions as much as possible, I prioritised making the plot work within a comics/CA:TFA context over making the plot historically sound. Concessions were made on both sides, but all you history buffs out there are kindly asked to suspend your disbelief. :)


	3. Three

The first thing Peggy thought when she saw Steve’s face was that it must be a dream.

She’d been wandering aimlessly for two hours, seeing nothing but weary faces and misery in the cold morning drizzle wherever she looked. The thought of Bucky was a hollow pain in her chest, and Steve couldn’t be here, she couldn’t.

But there she was, wearing a long overcoat to cover the star spangled nurse’s uniform that Peggy had seen on posters. Her hair was done up under her red, white and blue cap, but her lipstick was faded. She sat on a wooden box, shielded from the rain by a tarp cover, and was drawing in a small notebook.

“Hello, Steve,” Peggy said, throat dry, and she tried to smile at the look of disbelief on Steve’s face when she spotted Peggy. She stepped closer, moving to sit beside her, and caught a glimpse of a drawing of costumed geese and monkeys grinning farcically, before Steve shut the notebook.

“I didn’t know you were here,” Steve said, surprised. She shuffled over to make space for Peggy.

“I’m not strictly speaking supposed to be, so we didn’t advertise it,” Peggy replied and there was something forced and painful in Steve’s smile before she hung her head. “How’ve you been, Steve?”

“Do you need to ask?” Steve replied, snorting. “You saw the show, didn’t you?”

Peggy hadn’t seen it, she’d been in a meeting with Phillips, a distraught Lord Falsworth, and a couple of other brass for the past five days, taking only the shortest breaks every forty hours for some sleep.

She knew the general idea of it, though, had seen the posters and reels back in England, had read the reviews and reports. _Captain America_ they called Steve now, the female protagonist of a propaganda stage show that was meant to encourage young women to volunteer for the ANC, and everyone else to buy war bonds. There were posters of Steve in her uniform, standing tall and strong as she shielded the male hero, an injured Sergeant Freedom, from an unspecified threat. _Help protect those who fight for Freedom!_ the pictures said. _Become a Nurse!_

It had felt so wrong to Peggy, and she’d sat through the reel thinking of the stubborn, fierce woman she’d met, wondering what she’d have to say about such a spectacle. Wondering how she felt.

_This is an order, Sergeant_ , Captain America had said as she’d gracefully manhandled a brave and righteous Sergeant Freedom back into his hospital bed for some well-deserved recuperation after saving the world, while around them dancers did the cancan in equally spangly outfits. _And don’t forget_ – she winked at the audience and fireworks exploded – _I’m a Captain!_

There was nothing coquettish or cheerful about Steve now, away from the stage, and for all her size and strength she looked every bit as small and breakable as the woman Peggy had met back at Camp Lehigh. She reached out and put her hand on Steve’s.

“You know, I hear there are so many volunteers for the ANC now, they’re talking about not needing to recruit any more. You must’ve done something right.”

“Yeah, I’m a real hero,” Steve snorted, but brushed her fingers over Peggy’s. “America’s super-powered dancing monkey. I bet Erskine’d be really proud.”

She looked so tired and guilty, and Peggy shook her head.

“You know that’s not true, Stevie,” she said. “You’re a good person, and worth so much more than that. Erskine knew that. He believed in you.” She paused. “So do I.”

Steve looked at her for a long moment, then swallowed.

“All I wanted was to help. To be here at the front, and do my part. And now that I’m here all I get to do is stand on a stage and wave. While these men look like they’ve seen hell, and are still looking at it.”

“They have,” Peggy replied, swallowing to wet her throat. She couldn’t think of Bucky, not now. “About two weeks ago, our troops made a push north. They were successful, with only a few wounded that could be treated on site by the nurses and doctors. Until five days ago, the head of HYDRA-“

“HYDRA? The people who killed Erskine?” Steve threw in and Peggy nodded.

“They’re Hitler’s deep science division, led by Johann Schmidt. He ambushed our people up north five days ago and took more than half of them prisoner – soldiers, nurses, doctors, even the wounded. The men you saw today are the ones that got away.”

Steve’s hand suddenly clenched around Peggy’s and she sat upright.

“They took a field hospital?” When Peggy nodded, Steve’s eyes widened. “Which one? Who was the chief nurse?”

“Steve, what-“

“Who was the chief nurse? Peggy, please!”

Peggy swallowed, the echoing taste of horror returning to her mouth when she thought of it.

“Tamara Dugan. Steve-!”

Steve was already running, mud splashing under her feet.

***

“Calm down, Captain. If your nurse friends are still alive, they have better chances at surviving capture than any of my men.”

“Sir, with all due respect, but you can’t just do nothing while-”

“Don’t presume to know what I am or am not doing, "Captain" Rogers. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to do - and I’m sure there’s someone out there who'll be wanting your autograph,” Phillips said dismissively and Steve barely pressed out a “Sir” before she stormed out, anger boiling in her chest.

She was aware of men’s heads turning when she strode across the campsite, her short skirt riding up her thighs. She’d stopped caring about the looks after a couple of weeks of smiling into cameras, of posing with little boys in Sergeant Freedom costumes, and holding up babies for photographs.

Strands of wet hair clung to her face and her feet were soaked in her shoes when she reached the tent she and the other USO girls were staying in.

Bucky's necklace was cold against her skin when she tucked it under her blouse.

She left the tent less than five minutes later, changed into slacks and her tougher pair of boots and carrying her shield and Sergeant Freedom's helmet. She kept her head down as she ducked between tents, careful not to run into anyone who knew her.

"Steve!"

It was Peggy, and something in Steve's chest hurt when she realised that this was the second time she walked away from her like this, and how often since the last time she'd wished that she hadn't. She could've endured being a lab rat, she thought, maybe; it might've been better than where she'd gone when she'd gotten into the car outside the SSR building.

Except, she wouldn't be here now, and Bucky would still be missing.

"Steve!” Peggy called out again, running a few steps to keep up with Steve before pulling her to a stop. “Steve, what are you doing?”

“My only friend in this world got captured,” Steve replied, pointing north. “And if nobody’s going to try and get her and all the others out, then I will.” Tearing her arm free, she continued to make her way towards the forest that surrounded the camp, heading north.

“Steve, you can’t seriously think about doing that on your own!” she called, making an effort to match Steve’s pace. “You don’t have a plan, you don’t even have a _gun_ – are you just going to walk to Austria?”

“Yes,” Steve snapped, turning around. “You know what, yes, that’s what I’ll do. If I have to.” The shocked look on Peggy’s face deflated her anger just a little and she sagged her shoulders. “I have to, Peggy.”

Peggy stepped up to her and shook her head. Her voice was low and entreating.

“Steve, you can’t just run off, that’s suicide. Please don’t do this.”

She meant it, Steve realised, and faltered for a moment. And she was right, too, and Steve had to look away, had to think of Bucky’s face to bring back the fiery determination in her chest.

“You said you believed in me,” she said, and she could see the words hit, aware of how manipulative they were. “Do you at least believe in me enough to not immediately run to Phillips when I leave?”

Peggy stared at her for a long moment, then pressed her lips together. A raindrop was making its way down her temple and the line of her cheek.

“I think I believe in you more than that.”

When Peggy walked ahead to wherever Howard Stark’s tent was, Steve exhaled a nervous breath and gripped her shield more tightly. She was going to find Bucky, save Bucky. She was going to see Bucky again.

***

It was Steve, like so many times before, it was Steve, and Bucky smiled dazedly as she said her name.

“Bucky,” Steve said back, like so many times before, except this time she looked just a bit different, and she tore at the restraints around Bucky’s body in a way Bucky could feel rattling through her body. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

Steve was taller, and broader, and stronger as she tugged one of Bucky’s arms over her shoulders and half carried her out of the laboratory, down corridors and stairs, while around them everything was beginning to go up in flames.

“Steve,” Bucky said, over and over and over, almost unwilling to believe, and so desperate to at the same time. And when Steve told her to get out, Bucky didn’t care whether Steve’s skull was maybe red underneath her skin; all she could think was “No, not without you.”

***

When Bucky woke up the next time, she was cold and shivering and not even the heat of Steve’s body on the ground beside would fend off the chill. She got up, grabbed her rifle and looked around, spotting Tamara and Toro, who were keeping an eye on the wounded during the night. Both of them had guns slung around their necks.

Everywhere around them soldiers were sleeping, or staring up at the pre-dawn sky with wide eyes, as quiet as possible. There were guards posted all around, ready to strike alarm at the slightest movement. They had marched for a night and a day, but they'd needed to rest eventually, with at least another day's march ahead of them.

“You all right?” Tamara asked her when she staggered closer and Bucky nodded, wrapping her arms around herself and sitting down on a tree stump. Toro offered her a bottle of something sharp smelling and Bucky took a swig from it without asking what exactly it was.

“We should get moving soon,” an earnest voice suddenly said and Bucky turned around. It was Steve’s voice; she’d heard it too many times in the dark not to recognise it, across their shared room back in Brooklyn, or just across the pillow during nights where two beds were one too many.

The way Steve scratched the back of her neck and ran her hand up through her hair after she got up was the same. This woman was Steve, and now that her mind was clear and sharp, the familiar ache hit Bucky in the chest like a bullet.

“How are the men? Some of them were seriously injured,” Steve asked and Tamara shrugged, looking like she wasn’t sure whether she should maybe salute.

“All as good as we can patch ‘em up out here. But we got the worst cases travelling on the cars and the rest will walk as long as it’s homewards.”

“Thank you,” Steve said and both Toro and Tamara moved to begin waking up everyone, and alerting the guards that they were moving on soon. Bucky herself got up from her crouching position when Steve put her hand on her arm and pulled her closer. “Hey,” she said, “you all right, Buck?”

Bucky smiled through the grey darkness and nodded.

“I’m fine now, Stevie.” She was pulled into a hug and closed her eyes, arms wrapped around Steve’s middle. The last time she’d held Steve felt like years ago, and yet she remembered the way her heart had beat when she’d said _I’ll miss you_ and nothing more. She could feel it now, still beating, for the first time since they’d been captured. “I’m okay.”

“I’ll get you home, Bucky. I promise.”

“I know, Stevie,” Bucky smiled. “I know.”

***

Steve stood perfectly still while Phillips talked, and Peggy was biting down on her lips to keep from laughing with exhilaration. Steve was back, and she’d come back a hero.

“Agent Carter will show you to the hospital tent before you and everyone else who came back with you and doesn’t need medical attention will be moved to the next town. New reinforcements just arrived and we don’t have enough space here,” Phillips said gruffly, purposely not looking in Peggy’s direction. He’d only just gotten started on his rant when Steve and the troops she’d saved had come back, and he’d never get to finish it now.

“I had faith,” Peggy had said, and she’d thought he’d discharge her right then and there the way his jaw had clenched.

“Faith,” he’d pressed out, stepping up to her close enough to drop his voice to the lowest hiss. “That’s not faith you’re having, and we both know it. For heaven’s sake, Peggy.”

The commotion outside had saved her from having to reply.

“You’re dismissed,” Phillips concluded his lecture and Steve saluted.

It wasn’t until they were both outside that Peggy let the grin that had been tearing at her lips spread freely across her face. Steve had barely turned to meet her eyes when she burst out a laugh, beaming back at Peggy.

“You did it,” Peggy whispered, laughing too while shaking her head. “You did it! Over a thousand men, Steve!”

“It wasn’t me alone,” Steve replied, a blush creeping up her cheeks. “I didn’t do it all on my own.”

Peggy’s face softened and a thought crossed her mind.

“Why didn’t you call Howard? We could’ve-“

“Yeah, about that,” Steve cringed a little, pulling the remains of the radio out of her pocket. It had two holes straight through it, and Steve smirked awkwardly. “I tried all the frequencies, but couldn’t get through?”

Peggy laughed again, stepping a little closer to take the battered device from Steve’s hands. Steve averted her eyes, seemingly embarrassed when Peggy inspected the damage, but didn't move away.

“Thank you, Peggy,” Steve said quietly, and Peggy looked up at her, meeting her eyes. She seemed almost nervous, and warmth crept up Peggy's face. “I couldn’t have done it without your help, either.”

“I told you I believe in you, didn’t I?”

“Steve?” Bucky’s voice interrupted, and Peggy’s heart skipped a beat, until a flash of relief flooded through her, and she saw Bucky Barnes, exhausted, pale and starved, but _alive_ standing only a couple of feet away. Her blue eyes lingered on Peggy for a moment and her smile turned a little watery as she mouthed something Peggy didn’t quite catch. Not that it mattered.

“Bucky.” Steve’s voice was caught and Peggy turned her head just in time to see the look on Steve’s face before it disappeared behind an expression of concern that seemed too tame, too schooled in comparison to what it had replaced.

Bucky had been given clean clothes, but her hair was still dirty and her eyes were tired. It was the way she looked at Steve, though, when Steve walked over to her to fuss, the way she smiled like Steve was the sun after a polar winter that gave it away, and Peggy had to take a step back just to do something, to not stay frozen on the spot when she suddenly _understood_.

“I’m _fine_ , Stevie, I need to get some food and drink in me is all,” Bucky was protesting quietly and Steve sighed long-sufferingly, the way a childhood friend would. Except, Peggy thought, it really wasn’t, and Bucky deserved it - they both did, so much that Peggy couldn't even find it in her to not be glad for them.

“Dum Dum said they’re moving us somewhere else for tonight?” Bucky asked, looking at Peggy when Steve merely asked,

“Who’s Dum Dum?”

***

The line for the bath was long, but there was a sink and a big enough wooden tub to crouch in in Steve’s tiny private room in the attic, and Steve didn’t even ask when Bucky knocked on her door, towel in hand. They didn’t talk, and Bucky let Steve scrub her back in silence, shivering when the lukewarm water began to cool.

“What happened to you?” Bucky eventually asked quietly from underneath the covers of the bed, when Steve had taken a wash herself and had shucked her own nightdress over her head. She was pulling a brush through her long blond hair while shoving the tub into the corner under the sink with a foot.

“It’s a long story,” Steve said quietly as she slipped into bed. She was facing Bucky, but her arms were crossed before her body, keeping them separate. “There was an accident that should have killed me.” She shrugged, adjusted her head on the pillow. “Only it didn’t.”

“Hell of an accident,” Bucky muttered, pulling the blanket up to her chin, and Steve looked down at her hands, at her bruised knuckles that had healed almost completely. She looked ashamed, Bucky realised, ashamed and insecure all of a sudden, when she had stood so tall not two hours ago.

“It was an accident,” Steve whispered again, and she drew up her shoulders as her eyes darted up at Bucky’s again.

Bucky held her gaze for a long moment, then sighed.

“Only you, Rogers,” she said softly, inching a little closer. Her hands folded around Steve’s and pulled them a little away from her body, inspecting them. “Your hands still look the same.” She frowned up at Steve’s hair. “So do your floppy bangs.” Steve chuckled, relaxing a little and Bucky smiled. “Still smell the same too.” She reached out with a foot and flinched. “And your icicle feet-“

“I _can_ kick your ass now,” Steve groused then, poking Bucky in the side, and Bucky moved forward to press a kiss to her lips.

It was meant to be just that, a small thing that could be covered with a smile and words of comfort once the world started to turn again.

“Bucky,” Steve muttered, and Bucky was reluctant to open her eyes.

“I missed you so, Stevie,” she breathed, finally looking when she felt Steve shift against her, one arm around Bucky’s waist to hold her steady while she pulled her under.

“You have no idea,” Steve replied quietly, and they both leaned in this time.

Bucky caught Steve’s lips with her own, smiling and pressing closer with the breathless sigh that fell from Steve’s mouth. Her fingers were curled into the fabric of Steve’s nightgown, knuckles brushing against the skin and muscle underneath as Steve shifted on top of her, one knee placed between Bucky’s. There was so much, so much of Steve, and in all the times Bucky had tried to imagine this, had dared to dream of this, she’d never expected the sheer force of Steve pinning her down and kissing her, like it was the only thing that mattered in a town that was a mere day’s ride from the front.

“Don’t stop.” Bucky’s lips and tongue were humming when Steve pulled away, hair falling into her face as she sat back. She looked flushed and beautiful, and her hand hovered in the air for a moment until her fingertips touched back down, brushing over the curve of Bucky’s breast. Bucky gently arched into it. “Please.”

“Do you really want this?” Steve whispered and Bucky lifted herself up onto her elbows, one hand moving up Steve’s thigh, tugging gently at the front of the plain, pale pink nightdress.

“Every day,” she said, eyes locked on Steve’s. “For years.”

A surprised laugh burst out of her throat when Steve wordlessly hauled her up, pulling her into her lap and kissing her mouth, her jaw, her neck. Clawing impatiently at Steve’s back in return, Bucky giggled when Steve bit at her collarbone.

“This needs to come off,” she complained, tugging harder at Steve’s shirt and lifting herself up just enough to pull the fabric that was trapped between their legs free and up over Steve’s head. Her own nightshirt followed and Steve shifted her closer, both of them gasping into the kiss at the brush of wiry hair against the skin of their thighs.

Bucky moved idly in Steve’s arms, letting her hands wander down Steve’s back and along her shoulders and the thin gold necklace Bucky had given her months ago, up and around the shape of her breasts. They fit into the palms of Bucky’s hands, still small in proportion to the rest of her, with dark pink nipples poking between the gaps of Bucky's fingers.

Steve was still holding her, one hand in Bucky’s hair, the other around her waist, when Bucky reached down to where Steve’s hips were pressing down onto Bucky’s thigh.

“Lie back,” Bucky muttered against Steve’s stuttering lips, smiling into the kiss.

***

“So, is the hair coming off tomorrow, then?” Bucky asked when Steve joined her at the bar of the small and only tavern in town. Bucky and the other nurses had been there for the better part of an hour after a day of doing nothing in particular, but Steve had been whisked away by men in uniform shortly after breakfast, and spent the day in meetings with important people. Bucky had never met Howard Stark, but she knew what he looked like, and from what Peggy had told her, she could just about imagine what his part in this war was.

They hadn’t wanted Steve before, but they sure as hell would want her now.

Now that she had destroyed a HYDRA factory and freed hundreds of men that had been “missing in action, believed killed”, and brought back information no-one else had been able to obtain thus far.

“No,” Steve said, contemplating Bucky for a moment before taking a sip of her drink. Bucky was drinking whisky, had been all evening, and so was Steve now. She swallowed without flinching at the burn. “I can keep it long as I want it. They figure it’ll help keep the look more feminine.”

Which meant that whatever it was they wanted Steve for, it would be dangerous, more dangerous than the civilian population would approve of if they knew.

“What about the outfit, then?” Bucky teased, nodding at a Captain America poster that was pinned to the wall behind the bar. Steve shoved her elbow lightly and Bucky smiled grimly into her tumbler.

“Hey, Cap!” Tamara Dugan called from the corner table she and the other nurses were seated around. She was wearing a bowler hat with her uniform, her ginger curls sticking out underneath. _Dum Dum Dugan_ she’d been nicknamed by the men she’d defended and patched up, and helped haul back to safety. “You wanna sit down and tell us what’s next?”

Steve cast Bucky a quick glance before they both moved over to sit between Toro and Jacquie Dernier, with Jane Morita taking the corner seat. They were the core that had remained after Phillips had offered them all a ride home on account of what they’d been through. Maybe there was nothing to go back to for them, either. 

“You’re not going back on stage, are you?” Jane asked, and Steve pulled a face.

“Not if I can help it, no,” she replied and Dum Dum chuckled.

“Not many POWs you can rescue from a stage,” she grunted, eyeing Steve sharply. “Am I getting close?”

Bucky bit down on her lip when Steve shifted beside her, and kept her face passive.

“No women in the fight, Dum Dum,” Steve reminded her lightly, taking a swig of her whisky. Her eyes darted around the small group gathered around the table, resting on Bucky before focusing back on the chief nurse. “Why? Are you signing up?”

It was Jane who spoke first.

“I’m not sure if Bucky’s told you that in any of her letters, Cap,” she drawled, “but most of the time field hospitals are pretty darned boring."

The others grunted their assent, and eventually Steve turned to look at Bucky, a reluctant, hopeful gleam in her eyes that Bucky didn't have it in her to kill. It wouldn't make a difference to, either, she realised, because Steve was not going to back down. Bucky's choice had been made a long time ago. 

“Well,” she said, a half grin on her face. “Jane's not wrong.”

Steve laughed and slung one arm over Bucky’s shoulder, fingers buried in the hair at the back of her neck and holding on tight. Bucky chuckled into her whisky, only half paying attention to the conversation that followed. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but five minutes later, when the door to the tavern opened and their laughter died down, there wasn’t a doubt that every last one of them would follow Steve, into death if necessary.

They all looked up when two men in uniform stopped by Steve’s chair.

“Captain Rogers?" the first of them asked politely, and Bucky felt Steve’s hand slip off her shoulders when she stood, eyeing them both before shaking their offered hands.

“Lord Falsworth,” she greeted the older one, and he shook his head.

“Jack, please,” he insisted, and the man behind him introduced himself as Jim Hammond.

“Steve,” she returned, and Falsworth smiled.

“It’s an honour, ma’am.”

Steve, because she was still Steve, shifted awkwardly and Bucky hid her grin behind her glass.

“Looks like we’re gonna be needing some dance music,” Dum Dum muttered into her drink and Falsworth glanced at her before turning back to Steve.

“We’re not here to dance.”

“Pity,” Toro commented, eyes fixed on Hammond who, Bucky realised, honest to God _blushed_. Jane rolled her eyes, but not even an unsubtle kick under the table could distract Toro from looking at Hammond like a cat who’d spotted a particularly juicy mouse.

“I came to give you my thanks. My son was in the 107th,” Falsworth said to Steve and Bucky turned her attention back to them. “You saved his life.”

“I wasn’t the one who carried him from the factory,” Steve pointed out, and Falsworth looked around their small group.

“No,” he admitted, nodding at Dernier, Toro and Morita, who’d taken care of the more seriously injured soldiers on the cars on the long march back. “But you had the courage to do what I as a father and a soldier didn't, and I am not known to be a coward.”

Which was an understatement from what Bucky had heard of _Union Jack_ and his men's exploits into enemy territory, and she could see in Steve’s face that she knew very much who she was talking to.

“I want to thank you for saving my son,” Falsworth continued, “and to say that it would be my honour to serve with you.”

The drop of a pin would have rung loud in the silence that fell, and for a moment Bucky thought she might be sick with the churning in her stomach. She couldn’t look at Steve, focussed instead on the last remaining bit of whisky in her glass.

“Are you offering me to join your team, sir?” Steve asked, voice even.

“No,” Falsworth replied, equally seriously, and he nodded at the women around the table. “I’m asking to join with yours.”

***

Steve later found Bucky sitting outside, smoking and clearing her head in the cool night air. She didn’t say a word, just sat down next to Bucky on a pile of stacked wood, and even in the dark Bucky could see the open, unguarded look of affection on Steve's face as their knees brushed.

It was the same look she’d given Peggy not ten minutes ago when she’d dropped in to pass on a message from Colonel Phillips, and Bucky was no fool. She'd seen them standing together in front of Phillips's tent after they'd returned, and even if Steve hadn't told her what had happened after Bucky had left for training, and how she had become Captain America, the pieces hadn’t been difficult to put together.

Peggy looked at Steve the way Bucky looked at Steve, and the way Peggy had sometimes, just sometimes, looked at Bucky herself, in quiet moments that tasted of loss now when she thought of them.

“We’re flying back to England tomorrow morning,” Steve said conversationally and Bucky turned to look at her, a smile tugging at her mouth. Steve’s hair was falling into her face, and there was something lost about the way she looked at Bucky, waiting for her to say something.

“Did you ever kiss her?” Bucky asked, because it was something Peggy had never told her. And Bucky had never wanted to know until now, though she couldn't have explained why.

“No,” Steve replied, too quickly, grabbing Bucky’s hand and twining their fingers together. She sounded guilty, faintly upset. “No, I... Bucky, I didn’t.”

Bucky squeezed her hand and flicked the butt of her cigarette into a nearby puddle. She thought of the way Peggy had looked up at Steve, and a part of her wanted to laugh and ask how Steve could not have kissed her. 

“I did,” she whispered instead, a wry grin on her face when she turned to Steve, shoulders twitching with the tiniest shrug. "Didn't just kiss her, either."

Steve’s face was unreadable and for a long moment, she didn't seem to know what to say. Bucky looked away again.

“Do you love her?” Steve's voice was small, unsure, and maybe curious.

“I love you,” Bucky said, no hesitation. Then she swallowed. “But I miss her.”

***

England was rainier than the front, and the small town four hours outside London that they were stationed in was too quiet and remote for Bucky to find rest.

Steve was asleep next to her when she woke from a nightmare, frozen in shock and unable to move until she reminded herself of where she was, and why. The skin along her arms was prickling, as if dozens of needles were poking at her flesh, and Bucky slid out of bed before the noise building inside her throat threatened to burst free and wake Steve up.

There was a bathroom one floor down, and Bucky made her way as noiselessly as possible, eyes adjusting to the darkness, all senses alert. She even recognised Toro’s snoring from behind one of the doors, but it bore none of the comfort it always had back in the field.

The door of the bathroom had only just snapped shut behind Bucky when she bent over the nearest toilet and began to dry heave into it, suddenly overcome by a wave of sick terror. Her shoulders were shaking, and she gulped around the air that was wrenching its way up and down her throat. She could feel hands grabbing at her arms and holding her down, and she wanted to struggle, but her limbs were slack against the floor and-

“Bucky?”

The actual touch of a real hand on her shoulder jerked Bucky out of her dreams, and she sat back onto her heels with a gasp. Peggy was crouching behind her, a knit blanket thrown over her shoulders, her feet bare against the wooden floor.

“Bucky, are you all right?” She ducked her head to look into Bucky’s eyes. “Do you want me to get Steve?”

“Just a nightmare,” Bucky breathed, twisting to lean against the nearest wall. When Peggy contemplated her for a moment and then made to get up, she grabbed her hand. “Don’t go. Please.”

Peggy stayed still, and her voice was gentle.

“I’ll be right back.”

She left as quietly as she'd come, and Bucky had scrambled to her feet and managed to wash her face in the sink by the time Peggy returned with another blanket and a half empty bottle of scotch. Bucky smirked despite the chill in her veins that was only just ebbing away when Peggy held out the bottle to her before offering the blanket.

“Better?” she asked when Bucky handed her the bottle back, and Bucky huffed a laugh, throat burning.

“Yeah, actually,” she said, shucking the blanket over her shoulders and wrapping her arms around herself. “Thanks, Peggy.”

Peggy just smiled, small lines at the corners of her mouth, and held out the bottle again. Bucky brushed her fingers against hers when she took it.

“Stay awhile?” she asked quietly and Peggy hesitated for a moment before nodding. Her face looked softer without make-up; her features less sharp, younger. Bucky had only seen her like this a couple of times, and it was hard not to keep looking. Peggy took a swig of scotch and leaned back against the wall by the window. She didn’t move when Bucky shifted to stand beside her and their shoulders brushed.

"So, I hear you're quite the shot," Peggy began after a long minute during which neither of them said anything, and Bucky glared at her, which was only half as effective as usual by the dim light in the bathroom.

"Yeah, laugh it up," she replied dryly, grabbing for the bottle again. She and the rest of Steve's new team had spent the day on the shooting range, learning to handle a whole array of weapons a nurse didn't usually need to be familiar with. Bucky wasn't a bad shot; in fact, she'd taken to the task surprisingly well, but she'd also seen Peggy shoot and wasn't going to delude herself over how she compared.

"I'm serious," Peggy protested, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "You're catching on a lot faster than I did the first time they gave me a gun."

"Then I'm just gonna pretend this was the first time someone gave me one, huh?" Bucky asked, grinning slyly, and Peggy smiled before taking another swig from the bottle. The air between them settled, and Bucky realised she could breathe freely again, the last shreds of her nightmare gone. She found Peggy's hand and squeezed it.

“I should have said this when you came back,” Peggy said eventually, looking over at Bucky. “But I’m really happy you’re alive, Bucky. When they said that-”

She broke off, and Bucky swallowed down on the lump in her throat before tugging gently at her hand, her head cocked.

“Don’t tell me you were worried about me, Agent Carter...”

Peggy shot her a deprecating look, but there was the hint of a smile on her face and she raised the bottle to her lips and emptied it. Bucky watched for a moment before leaning her head back against the cold wall, eyes closed. 

“Guess that’s what I get for falling for nurses,” Peggy said finally and when Bucky glanced down at her, her face was turned towards her. Bucky’s heart was in her throat, and her voice cracked.

“Plural?”

Peggy didn't reply, but her grip around Bucky's hand tightened, and Bucky reached out with her free hand to pull her against herself, blanket half sliding off her shoulders and bunching up where Bucky's arm curled around her middle. There was a soft clinking sound when Peggy set the empty bottle down on the windowsill before pressing her hand flat against the space between Bucky's shoulder blades, her breath warm against the line of Bucky's jaw as she rested her head on her shoulder.

"I'm genuinely happy for you, you know." There was a hint of pleading in Peggy's voice, and she let go of Bucky's hand to rest it on her hip. "You look so right together."

"Funny," Bucky swallowed, moving a hand up to stroke the back of Peggy's hair. "I think that every time I see you two." She laughed quietly. "I don't think I even know what I want anymore."

It was just a tiny movement, a slight tilt of the head when Peggy looked up, and Bucky's fingers dug gently into the curls at the back of her head. The kiss was soft and light, but it lasted, and Peggy's hand tentatively moved around her waist, holding on, and Bucky whimpered. 

She'd thought she'd never get to kiss Peggy again, when the bullets had started flying and the 107th had been taken, when they'd singled her out and strapped her to a lab table, when she'd realised they had been in love with the same woman all this time. It wasn't fair, none of it, Bucky thought when Peggy's lips opened under hers. Peggy should have Steve, and Steve so clearly wanted her, and Bucky wanted them both too much to choose.

They broke apart, and when Bucky opened her eyes, she saw Steve standing in the door, staring at them with wide eyes. Peggy's arm slipped off where it had come to rest on Bucky's shoulder, her body going still.

"Steve," she whispered, and she looked like she was going to speak, but no words came out.

Steve's breath sounded harsh between the tiled walls, but when Bucky met her eyes, it wasn't anger that she saw. It wasn't hurt, either.

Slowly, with her heartbeat drumming loud inside her ears, Bucky held out a hand, one arm still curled around Peggy's waist. Steve looked at her, at Peggy, and at Bucky's hand, before she took a step forward and slowly, shakily reached out to take it with her own.

She kissed Bucky without hesitation, and Bucky smiled when they broke apart, nuzzling her neck and pressing a kiss just below her ear.

"You all right, Stevie?"

"Yeah," Steve breathed, and Bucky could feel her tremble when Peggy slowly moved a hand up her arm. They looked at each other with quiet adoration in their eyes, until Bucky thought her heart was going to burst, and she gave Steve a gentle nudge.

"Well?"

Steve laughed then, and her grip on Bucky's hand tightened when Peggy moved towards her, laughing herself when Steve simply grabbed her and pulled her up to kiss her. They were beautiful, Bucky thought, still holding on to both of them.

***

The moan that fell from Steve’s lips when her orgasm hit her was muffled by Bucky's mouth, and Steve felt her whole body shaking with the sparks of pleasure that rolled through her, thighs twitching, neck arching up and biting aimlessly at Bucky's lips. Bucky tasted of salt and scotch, and her eyes were dark when Steve let her head drop back into Bucky's lap, hands blindly reaching for Peggy's where they rested on Steve's hips. Peggy was breathing hard, and her gasps made the skin below Steve's navel quiver.

She slid up Steve's body, brushing the insides of Steve's thighs with her hips and legs, and pressed up eagerly against the hand Steve trailed down her front. Her kisses were wet, warm, and Steve savoured the taste that lingered on her tongue when Peggy broke away and pushed herself up further to her knees to kiss Bucky. She was close enough for Steve to smell the musk between her legs, and without much thought or hesitation Steve shifted down and out of Bucky's lap to press her mouth against the dark hair with a contented sigh.

Peggy's gasps cut through the sound of kissing, and Steve opened her eyes when fingers brushed a light strand of hair out of her face. Bucky was looking down at her, eyes dark and lips parted in bliss while Peggy mouthed at her neck. One of Peggy's hands was buried in the curls of Bucky's pubic hair, and from below Steve could see two fingers pushing up inside her.

"There," Bucky gasped quietly as she ground down, and “yes”, head dropping against Peggy's shoulder, and Steve couldn't bring herself to look away while she licked into Peggy, moving with the light canting of her hips. Above her, Peggy was moaning quietly, tiny gasps against Bucky's skin while her arm began to move faster. Bucky was thrusting herself down harder, silent curses falling from her lips, and she reached down to take Steve's off Peggy's thigh, slowly and shakily guiding it to where Peggy's fingers were moving in and out of her.

"Steve..."

The angle was awkward, but the shudder that gripped Bucky when two of Steve's fingers joined Peggy's, and the way her hips began to jerk more frantically had Steve breaking away for breath, head falling back against the mattress. Peggy didn’t seem to mind as she kissed Bucky through her orgasm, swallowing the low cries of pleasure and holding her steady when Bucky's body went boneless against her.

When Peggy finally came herself, she was wedged between Steve and Bucky, who reached around her body from behind to stroke her while she bucked against Steve's fingers. They lay tangled afterwards, Peggy purring softly into Steve's shoulder when Bucky leaned over her to kiss Steve, languid and sweet.

Steve let her head fall back into the pillow, every last fibre of her humming with bliss and content and love. Peggy's eyes were closed, a smile on her face, and Bucky was hiding a yawn in Peggy's hair, blinking at Steve with a lazy smile that set something in Steve's chest aglow.


	4. Epilogue

Bucky stood in the door, face guarded, calm, and so vulnerable, her hair longer than it had ever been as it fell onto her shoulders.

The room was silent, seconds ticking by on the clock as she gathered her breath.

“Hello, Peggy," she said quietly, and tears started falling from Peggy’s eyes, suddenly and unstoppable, and a sob shook her frail, old body as she covered her face with her hands. The sight of her made Steve's heart hurt, and beside her Bucky’s shoulders sank, her voice cracked as she moved towards the bed.

“Oh, Peggy, no…”

Peggy was crying like her heart was breaking all over again, the way she had seventy years ago, when Steve had returned from their mission alone. Now she was clasping at Bucky’s fingers, at the gloved ones of her left hand, while Bucky carefully pulled her out of the pillows and gently hugged her against herself.

“Bucky… oh God, it’s really you, Bucky...”

"It's really me, Peggy." 

Bucky was crying too, Steve realised when she sat down on the second visitor’s chair, lightly resting a hand on the blanket covering Peggy’s legs. Bucky was stroking down the back of Peggy’s head, combing the long, white hair with her fingers and softly rocking them both while Peggy sobbed quietly into the front of her hoodie.

“The long hair looks good on you,” Bucky eventually muttered, the tiniest smile tugging at her lips, and Peggy’s laugh sounded so painful that Bucky moved her away from herself just enough to look at her face. Her thumbs wiped at Peggy’s tears that were still coming, and she leaned in to kiss the lids of Peggy’s eyes. “Don’t cry, Peggy. I’m not dead.”

It was the worst thing to say, and the laugh that broke out of Peggy sounded better, more like Peggy as they’d known her, and Bucky grinned, if a little shakily. She leaned into the touch when Peggy cupped her cheek with her hand, shaking her head as new tears welled up in Peggy's eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Bucky. So sorry.” She closed her eyes, lips trembling. “I didn’t know. I didn’t… I went looking for you, I wanted to bring you home. I tried, I tried, and I’m so sorry, I didn’t know…”

Steve averted her eyes, fighting tears of her own all of a sudden, despite her determination to stay strong enough to help them through this. She knew Howard had looked for her after she'd gone down, had tried to find Captain America, but no-one had ever mentioned trying to find Bucky. No-one except for HYDRA, and for Peggy, who'd been left alone with nothing to bury or mourn.

“I know you didn’t know,” Bucky said soothingly, covering Peggy’s hands with her own. She smiled bitterly. “Even I didn’t know. You wouldn’t have liked me much, Peg.”

Peggy's grip on Bucky tightened and her voice was caught, barely audible.

“I’d have done anything to get you back.”

Bucky swallowed.

“Of course you would’ve. You’re our best girl.” She turned around to look at Steve, who was still wiping the tears from her eyes. Peggy’s smile was watery and Bucky laughed a little. “But I got Stevie literally knocking the sense back into me in the end.”

“You did do some knocking of your own,” Steve said wryly, sniffling, but moving her chair closer to Bucky’s so she could take one of Peggy’s hands into hers. Peggy smiled when Steve raised it to her lips to kiss her palm, and brushed her thumb across Steve’s lips.

“Thank you,” she whispered, still holding on to Bucky as she lay back into her pillows, taking a deep breath. Steve simply clasped one of her hands between her own and watched as Bucky leaned over to the nightstand and picked up one of the framed photographs on it. A smile spread on her face and she squeezed Peggy’s hand with her flesh and blood one.

“You have kids,” she said, sounding surprised and delighted, showing the photograph of a younger version of Peggy to her before handing it to Steve. A frown appeared on her face. “You got married? To a man?”

“Mh-hmm,” Peggy replied still a little choked up, but lips contorting to a grin. “Who'd have thought it? Remember Jack Falsworth?”

“Those were just rumours for the reels!” Bucky blurted out sternly, and this time Peggy laughed with genuine amusement.

“I did not marry Union Jack, calm down!” she snorted and Steve grinned at the look of relief on Bucky’s face. It had been a pretty ridiculous rumour, but it had explained Peggy’s picture in Steve’s compass when one of the reels had got a shot of it. Peggy smiled, her eyes slightly distant as she remembered. “Jack never thought of marrying again after his wife died. His son Brian, though.”

“But he was-“

“Bent as a three bob note,” Peggy concluded dryly, and Steve smiled, not really tiring of hearing the story. When Bucky didn’t seem to understand, Peggy’s eyes sparkled, and her smile turned a little wistful. “So was his sister, it turned out. Jacqueline Falsworth. I met her in London in… forty-eight, or forty-nine, working with the MI-13 as we built up SHIELD. Jackie was the first woman who made me laugh after… after the war.”

Steve, who had been looking at the photo of Peggy and her children, put it back on the nightstand, next to one of Peggy and a smiling blond woman with cheerful eyes wearing full flight gear and waving beside a Spitfire. Jacqueline had died three years before Steve had woken up, and she still wished she could have met her, met the woman who had made Peggy so happy.

They stayed and talked for another ten minutes, until the nurse came in to tell them that visiting hours were over. When they both made to get up, Peggy grabbed the sleeve of Bucky’s hoodie.

“Will you let me see?”

Bucky looked at Steve for a moment, and the calm that had settled over her seemed to crack. When she turned back to Peggy, however, she nodded, holding out her gloved hand to Peggy, who slowly peeled off the black leather, uncovering silver cold digits and hard metal. Bucky turned her hand in Peggy’s palm, caressing her knuckles, before pulling it away to take off her hoodie.

A mixture of sadness and marvel lay in Peggy’s eyes when she ran her hands along the smooth forearm, up her elbow until the point where the arm disappeared beneath the sleeves of Bucky’s t-shirt. When she let go and Bucky straightened up to put the hoodie back on, Peggy said,

“You’re beautiful, you know. Still are.”

“So are you,” Bucky replied, bending down to kiss her forehead. The reflection of light on gold caught her attention and slowly, she lifted the necklace out from under Peggy’s nightshirt. “You still have it.”

“I do,” Peggy said quietly. “I promised, didn’t I? Until you came back.”

“It belonged to my ma, you know,” Bucky smiled, letting the thin chain glide through her fingers until it rested back against Peggy’s skin. “Keep it safe for me?”

Peggy nodded and Steve waited by the door for Bucky when she had said her goodbyes to Peggy, promising to come back.

“Take care of each other,” Peggy called after them and Steve smiled back at her, Bucky’s hand clasped in hers.

“Promise.”

***

_June 1944_

Peggy opened the door after the first knock, and Steve stood a little straighter for the look in her eyes.

“Captain.”

“Agent Carter.”

Peggy’s lips twitched as she looked Steve up and down, and she squealed with surprised laughter when Steve moved, simply grabbing her by the waist and lifting her up as she stepped into the room, door falling shut behind her. 

“You’re late,” Peggy muttered against Steve’s lips, smiling into her kisses and wrapping her arms around Steve’s neck. 

“I’m not late,” Steve muttered back, making for the bed, where Bucky lay sprawled, already half out of her uniform. “Bucky skipped physical.” 

She set Peggy down on the bed, leaning in to kiss Bucky, who had moved to all fours and was smirking. 

“I didn’t get stabbed in the thigh now, did I?” she said and Peggy whose hands were already unbuttoning the front of Steve’s uniform jacket, sat up to bite at her neck. 

“Reckless,” she chided, a breathless laugh escaping her when Steve shoved up her skirt to expose a large bruise on her hip. She wasn’t wearing any underwear and Bucky looked far too smug as she ran her fingers up across the bush of hair to the yellow and green splotches. 

Steve tutted and shucked off her uniform jacket before moving up the bed to bite at Peggy’s neck and mouth at the curve of her breasts while unbuttoning her blouse

“I’m reckless, am I?” she asked, licking the scar at Peggy’s collarbone while Bucky’s hand began busying itself between Peggy’s legs. There’d be time later, time to get their clothes off, but right now, after a month away from her, neither Steve nor Bucky had much patience left. 

“You should see the other guy,” Peggy gasped, one hand in Steve’s hair, holding her head in place against the curve of her neck. She was close and Steve licked across the pulse point at her throat, tongue curling around the thin golden necklace that Bucky had once given Steve for safekeeping. 

“I don’t care about the other guy,” Steve growled into Peggy’s ear when she came, gasping and stuttering their names, grabbing at Bucky’s blouse to pull her in for a kiss. “I care about our best girl.” 

Peggy laughed, breathless and happy as they all shifted, struggling out of their clothes enough to be comfortable in their heap on the bed. They had all night, Steve thought giddily, all night with nowhere to be tomorrow, or the day after. Phillips was back in Washington, and Falsworth had left for London to bury his wife, and Steve felt more alive than she ever remembered feeling. 

The curtains were drawn, and Bucky was dancing with Peggy, slow and close, naked in the warm light of the bedside lamp. Steve smiled at the soft lines of charcoal on her sketch pad, and blushed when she looked up and brushed away the hair that had fallen into her face to see them both look at her. 

“What?” she asked, and Bucky’s smile turned into a grin as she held out her hand to Steve.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> All my love goes to [mrs_jack_turner](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_jack_turner/pseuds/mrs_jack_turner) and [nerakrose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nerakrose), who are pretty much the best pair of betas a girl could wish to be in a threeway friendship with.


End file.
